I Ran my First 5k (and survived)

Above: The first river crossing

Above: Runners on the trail. My ex is the guy in black shirt without a hat.

The race took place in a lovely mountain resort at 8:30 am, well before the sun was making the day unbearable. I arrived with my friends just a few minutes before race time. We had not checked in yet and would have started the race late, but luckily there were so many other tardy people that the race was pushed back 20 minutes.

I arrived at the check-in counter and got my timing chip, which I tied onto my shoelace. I was completely stoked! There were 92 people competing in the 5 k and nearly 400 competing in the 10k. Both races started at the same time and place, but after about a mile and a half, they branched off. My friends stood near the front of the starting line, but I opted to start near the back of the pack because I didn't want to feel rushed. This race was all about doing MY personal best and having fun, regardless of how others ran.

When the race began, I kind of felt like one cow out of a herd of cattle being rounded up, but soon the pack thinned out. I was surprised to see a few people running with their dogs. How cute! The course started out flat, then there was a rather long section of nothing but pure uphill. It was hell there for a while! I did quite a bit of walking during that part, but I walk really fast. At one point, I was walking beside this woman who was running, but I was going faster. A woman behind me said, "people with long legs have such an advantage," which is not true, but whatever.

We crossed a river 4 times in the race. The picture above shows one of the crossings. I thought I would hate that part, but the river crossings were my favorite. They not only cooled me off, but they gave me an excuse to walk without looking like a loser. Some of the more serious runners ran through the river, but not me. I was not about to fall and bust my skull on a rock.

In the downhill portion of the race, I ran like hell over roots, across sand. At one point, I hit some wire sticking up on a barbed wire fence. At first I thought, oh shit, this is going to hurt. Very luckily, the wire I touched was not barbed, and I was fine. Whew!

I saw a really odd sight! An older man, 60 or so, started to fall as he was running downhill. He did a somersault to try to prevent himself from getting hurt. It worked, and he just rolled off to the side of the trail (fortunately, this area was sand).

Well, finally, I approached the finish line. Being a newbie, I didn't know that I should sprint to the finish line. A woman who had been behind me suddenly sprinted and beat me by like an inch. D'oh! There were a couple of people who were finishing the 10k at the same time I was finishing the 5k. Wow!

I could do a regular 5k in about 30 minutes. Because this one was so strenuous, I finished it in 41 minutes. I came in 59th place out of 92 runners, which was really better than expected. There were a few people who took about 90 minutes to finish. I think they must have gotten tired and decided to take a nap mid-race, ha ha.

After I crossed the finish line, I tried to walk around it to get to my friends. I forgot I had on the timing chip, so I actually ran the 15k, because I crossed the finish line 3 times! I was embarrassed, because there is a beep when you cross the line. The timing guy told me to take my chip off. Oops!

I received a really cool T-shirt for my efforts, and there were lots of door prizes awarded, unfortunately not to me.

This race was really fun and exciting. I am already training to do a 10k in October.